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July 31st, 2010
Hello friends! I can’t possibly fit the first two months of summer into one blog post, but I don’t want to drag it out into a multiple post thing. I kept thinking I’d write about my summer exploits, but well…it was summer. I was too busy, or too lazy. Maybe I can give you the big picture.
My well-laid summer plans for Getting Things Done fell through in a big way. Have I done anything on that lengthy list of things to do during the three months my kids were out of school? I don’t really think so. I sure never got around to any blogging or writing. I didn’t even read blogs.
But my garden has been fabulous. I didn’t know I was capable of growing anything, really – and yet I have tons of squash and green beans, and now cucumbers, okra (ok, just one okra), tomatoes, four kinds of peppers, and darling little baby watermelons and pumpkins that I hope to harvest eventually. My chickens are growing up, and they’re still cool. I’m in the habit of going out to check on them in the mornings and evenings, and I love the chicken noises they make. We were sad that two turned out to be roosters and ended up back at the feed store, but happy to bring home two more fuzzy chicks, who are currently in my dining room in the brooder.
Recently I also brought home two zebra finches, and they’re the cutest birds ever. Raja (the male) sings to Rani (the female) all the time, and he brings little things to put in their nest. If she doesn’t like that particular piece of hay, she throws it out. Even cuter than their housekeeping habits are the three tiny eggs Rani is sitting on, and how they trade places every evening for awhile; Raja sits on the eggs while Rani eats and stretches her wings for awhile.
We traveled to Port Aransas in my parents’ RV, and stayed almost right on the beach. We got our beach fix – it had been several years since our last ocean visit – and relaxed a lot. The pelicans were amazing. The next trip was taking our daughter – who will be a teenager in less than a month! – to camp in New Mexico. When we pick her up, we’ll stay in Santa Fe for several days – our last summer fling before it’s back to school. I’ve also enjoyed the annual family reunion, plus a trip to Six Flags and the Dallas Aquarium.
I haven’t written anything, in case you want to know. But when school starts again – in 18 more days – I’ll be back at it. Can’t wait. I’ve read some books (reviews to come!) and Ladies Coffee Night has continued, steady and true, always a high point of my week, although different friends have been in and out with summer travel.
Summer mishaps have included crushing my finger (it still hurts!) in a folding chair that broke, getting stuck in the mud in New Mexico (tow truck winched us out), and getting drenched by rain at Six Flags. Plans have changed: I didn’t Get Things Done because I spent a lot of time hanging out with my brother Jay. His group home isn’t the best situation, and he doesn’t deserve to be parked in front of a television all day – so we did stuff together. You’d have to know Jay to understand that when you’re hanging with him, you can’t really get anything else done. All in all, I think being with him was a better choice that cleaning my house or working on a website anyway.
What next? I don’t know if I can blog again before school starts. If not, I’ll be back in late August. And after that, big things are on the horizon. First, finishing my book. Yes, I mean the manuscript I was going to finish back in May before I got distracted by building a chicken coop. I’ll be the mother of a teenager for the first time and also a mother who has no little kids at home for the first time in thirteen years. My husband will turn 40. Autumn will be lovely, and we’ll go to India again in the winter.
And then, who knows? Every day, life awaits. Happy summer, friends.
May 25th, 2010
I imagine myself as a farm wife, milking cows, up at 4am, baking bread and churning butter. Of course I would be a farm wife from several hundred years ago, a real pioneer, so I’d be wearing an awesome dress while I did all the chores, although no one would think it was awesome then. (Somehow it takes many decades to make such a thing appealing.) I’d appreciate the warmth of the barn and the animals on early winter mornings, and naturally I’d be quilting and canning vegetables from my garden and teaching my little daughters to do embroidery samplers. Or maybe I’d be more of a European farm wife. Heck, why be a simple serf? I’d me more of a Maid Marion. I would totally know how to wield a sword and wear an even more awesome dress at the same time. Defending my home, which would look a bit like a modest castle, just like in the movies. And then be swept away into the forest to be wooed by a hot sword-wielding guy in equally awesome clothing. And my hair would be really long. That’s in every daydream except the futuristic ones.
Some days, the really hot late summer afternoons when the air is almost burning, I’m Cleopatra. Or Nefertiti, or Hatshepsut. Doesn’t matter, as long as I’m in Egypt, lounging around the palace and being fanned by servants with big palm leaves while I eat dried fruits and plan my next intrigue. I have to stay one step ahead of my enemies, who are naturally planning my assassination – again. I’m too clever for them, and they will be exposed and sentenced to death, but I still have to be careful. Bring me another glass of wine! And hey you, come apply another coat of this fabulous eyeliner! I think it’s running in this awful heat.
What I really need is some way to cool off – like an ocean voyage. Shall I take the Titanic? Or sail solo around the world in something a bit smaller? My exploration daydreams start to take on Amazon undertones, and then I’m in South America slowly cruising the waterway, alert for danger, my guide taking me deep into the virgin forest to brave cannibals and crocodiles while I search for the legendary treasure. Why yes, I do happen to be wearing one of those cool khaki outfits and a safari hat! And I have a gun. And a knife. And a machete. And a treasure map.
I’m on a plane that’s in trouble, about to crash. The oxygen masks have popped out, but we all know that’s not going to do much. I can look out the window and see the trees coming closer, and the engines are silent. I only hope we don’t explode on impact – will I be able to escape and live to tell the story? I also find myself on sinking ships, tackling a mall shooter, doing undercover stings with dangerous criminals, and searching for the tracking chip the evil government has implanted somewhere on my person because they know I have dangerous information that could bring down the whole country.
So you people just watch out. Because when you see my gold nail polish, please know it’s because I’m a Queen of Egypt. Or when I tell you I’m raising chickens, even though I’m not wearing a bonnet, it’s because I’m secretly a Pioneer farm wife. And when I express delight at something scary or gross, don’t judge me – because we who live very dangerously think stuff like that is cool. We can’t help it.
May 24th, 2010
It’s 12:37pm. I mean to be revising my novel today – this is the last week of school for the kids and who knows what will happen once summer is officially here. It’s possible, I suppose that I could have an entirely peaceful three months filled with long days to revise the manuscript while the children play sweetly in the backyard, but I doubt it. It’s not bad, just different. And I anticipate much less time to work on the novel. So today is one of the last days for awhile, but here it is already afternoon, and I haven’t started.
But I’m going to do a post on my latest book, darn it! I’m clinging to these Monday posts, because it seems to be about all I can do lately, no matter how great my intentions each week.
I finished reading The Return of the Native by Thomas Hardy. Mostly I listened to it on audio book while I painted the chicken coop. I give it three stars out of five. I liked Tess of the D’Urbervilles much better. The heroine, Thomasin, was the sweetest character, and she reminded me a lot of Tess, but I got irritated with Thomasin when she went ahead and married the big jerk Wildeve. I did appreciate that Wildeve and Eustacia got what they deserved in the end: each other, and death. They were both so selfish, had such a lack of empathy, and made such decisions to screw up their own lives and those of others. They were not tragic characters, in my opinion, but I think Hardy meant them to be. I saw them as so flawed by their selfishness that there was no way to really sympathize with them. Diggory was the best character; he knew what he wanted and was persistent, but he never let his own desires hurt those around him. He was patient, and wise, and clever – and in the end, he succeeded. Clym, the native who returns, is the tragic figure. He’s blind in his love for Eustacia, and then when he starts to actually go blind, his dreams for the future fall apart. He loses his mother and his wife and his self-respect. On a happier note, I loved the descriptions of the wild heath and the country people, although I never quite understood why the country people always did exactly what the gentry told them to, even when they were not under their employ.
OK, book review done – more of my thoughts instead of a true review, I guess – and now on to my own writing and revising.
May 18th, 2010
I have a stack of books waiting to be read. Stacks, really. They pile up on my nightstand, my little green table in the corner of the living room, and even the kitchen counter. When I go out and there’s any chance I’ll have time to read, I pack not one but two books in my bag, although I rarely have a chance to pull out the first one, much less finish. My iPhone is to blame: if I have ten minutes these days, I’m more apt to check the weather, the news, Twitter, or emails since they’re always in my pocket. This summer I’m aiming for less iPhone, more books. Household chores are to blame. If the laundry is piled up or nothing is in the works for supper, I don’t feel able to sit down and read. There’s work to be done! But now I’m back to the point of feeling lost and out of sync without my books, without my writing (it’s been a few weeks); I’ve allowed my schedule to get off track, so I’ve not had time for books or words of any sort. Which brings me back to this: I only have time for reading and writing if I make time. There will always be something else that needs to be cleaned, managed, put away, washed, or cooked. Always. It will never end. Therefore, I must stop working at some point and get back to reading and writing, just because I want to. No, I need to – because without reading and writing, I’m anxious and unhappy.
Today I’ve packed two books: Reading Lolita in Tehran and The Writer’s Journey. Reading Lolita is the book for Thursday night’s book club meeting, but I have put it off so long that I only started it last night. There’s very little chance I’ll finish in time, but at least I will have started. The Writer’s Journey is that wonderful book about mythic structure; my blogging goal was to write about writing every Wednesday, and if I’m going to blog again tomorrow, I need to learn something new. And oh yes, there are others. The Unfolding of Language, which I’m halfway into, is a fascinating nonfiction that my Dad loves and loaned to me. Still Life With Chickens is a loan from Katie, in honor of the fact that I now have chickens. The Beck Diet has a hot pink dust jacket and is a loan from Jana, about training yourself to improve willpower and how the mind works regarding such things (I think). Learn Telugu Through English, because I dream that my third trip to India will be the one where I can understand what people are saying. Then there’s The Bluest Eye, overdue from the library. Add to that a book about gardening and a couple about parenting teens. The chicken book I reviewed yesterday, which I need to go back through and take a few notes so I’ll remember some of the guidelines about feeding and chicken healthcare. Writing Down The Bones. Zen in the Art of Writing, which I want to reread with a highlighter. Several other books about the art and process of writing. A paperback fiction book that I got for free with a shirtless and well-muscled man on the cover holding a sword. And who knows what else? Those are just the books I can remember without looking. There are books hiding in drawers, growing dusty in their piles on shelves, books that have found their way under the bed, or were never taken out of the bag I carried last month. Books in the car. Books in boxes in the garage that I mean to read someday. They are comforting, even the dusty ones, symbols of knowledge waiting to be learned and stories waiting to be known. Future, fantasy, education, wisdom – all at my fingertips, ready for me to choose them, to drink them in and make them a part of myself.
May 17th, 2010
If you read my last post about wishing for more hours in a day to do all the things I want to do, you know I started a crazy new project involving chickens. I started by buying a book that caught my eye at Lowe’s, and it was every bit as good as the cover made it seem. Keeping Chickens by Jeremy Hobson and Celia Lewis has taught me much. I love good DIY books and how-to books; give me a good book about something and I feel like I can do anything. Keeping Chickens has all the good stuff about buying chickens, the pros and cons of chicken ownership, feeding, breeding, health and maintenance, housing, and on and on. The most valuable section, though, is the 40+ page chapter on breeds, complete with lovely color pictures of over 70 of the most popular breeds, and their strengths and weaknesses.
 Virginia and Edward looking at our first chicks in the brooder pen.
Here are some things I didn’t know about chickens: They have earlobes; the color of the egg is almost always the same color as the earlobe (red earlobes=brown eggs; white=white, and some chickens can lay blue, pink, yellow!). Chickens can make good pets. They can’t fly. Bantams are miniature chickens. Some people show chickens the same way people show dogs (I won’t be going there). Baby chicks need heat for about 4-6 weeks.
Good reasons to have chickens: They lay eggs. Sure, I could buy eggs at the grocery store, but that’s less fun than collecting them in my own little chicken coop. They provide meat – although if these chickens seem like pets, I really don’t see us killing and eating them. They fertilize and aerate your lawn, and eat bugs. They’re fun to watch.  Edward holding the New Hampshire Red After reading the section on chicken breeds, we chose a variety of chickens – hopefully all hens – that would make a colorful and entertaining flock. I chose breeds that said they were great with kids (not mean at all) and made good pets, were good breeds for beginners, were not flighty (as in, wouldn’t jump the fence and get eaten by the neighbor’s dog) and would be fine if they didn’t have free range. I intend to let them free range around the backyard, but if that doesn’t go well, I want to be able to confine them to the coop. We got one of each of these: Australorp, White Plymouth Rock, Barred Plymouth Rock, New Hampshire Red, Gold-Laced Wyandotte, Welsummer, and White-Crested Black Polish; and two Buff Orpingtons. Oh yes, you’ll be seeing photos of my flock.
The coop: Once we brought home the chicks, I started working on a coop. I found a design online (actually there are hundreds of designs online), an a-frame chicken tractor.  Checking out the coop for the first time A chicken tractor is a coop on wheels that you can move around the yard so they don’t ruin any one spot and the benefits to the lawn can be spread out. The top segment has a plywood floor and walls, a roost, a gangplank for them to get out, and is covered with pine shavings. Soon I will add nesting boxes, although there will be no eggs until they’re about 5 months old. The bottom section is open to the ground, about two feet high, and the walls are chicken wire. There is also a door in the bottom part, so if they are confined to the coop, they have either the inside or the ground level; they will stay in one of these two areas until they’re full grown. Judging by how fast they’ve grown so far, I think it won’t be long. I discovered that chicken poop smells REALLY bad, so the seven bigger chicks – pullets now, I guess – moved to the coop last night as soon as we finished putting up the chicken wire. Now my house smells better, and only the two little ones are still in the brooder pen in my dining room.
I have some more reading and more work to do on the coop, but the bulk of the work for this project is over. Keeping Chickens was an invaluable book, and I highly recommend it if you’re thinking of getting chickens for your backyard.  Barred Plymouth Rock
May 5th, 2010
I don’t know how many days I’ve intended to post something. Here I am, finally, after what seems like such a long time. In a moment, I’ll have to make something for breakfast and send my family out the door for the day. Katie has been posting lists on her blog, and I love reading them (even if I do get a bit behind with my blog readings). So with lists in mind, these are the things that have kept me from blogging. Perhaps next week I can get back into my regular post schedule, book reviews, etc.. (Or maybe the week after that!)
1. Taste of India Luncheon and Silent Auction. Ray and I are leading a group of 10 on a December trip to work at our orphanage in India, so we had a fundraiser. (Airline tickets are very pricey!) The event was a huge success, but it completely preoccupied me for at least two weeks. We had live music (Indian musician friend and performer), Americanized Indian food, silent auction, activities for kids, free henna, etc. Three hundred people doesn’t seem like a lot, but trust me, it felt like a lot when we started decorating and cooking. Even now, over a week later, I’m finishing up the thank you notes and still don’t have an exact number on how much we cleared.
2. Chickens. Yes, chickens. It’s a long story, but Harvey the dog continued to be destructive, and he has gone to live at my parents’ house. I was the only one who cried in the family – my kids didn’t seem to care at all and Ray is the one who was most bothered by Harvey’s behavior, so he was thrilled. In my sadness, I started remembering all the things I had wanted my back yard for once it was being destroyed by our dog. Such as chickens. I’m kind of on a pet rebound relationship thing with these chickens. I read a book about them, ordered a little flock online, and then figured I had at least six weeks to build the coop since they would be in a brooder pen for a long time first. A trip to the feed store changed that – I was shocked and delighted to discover that they had almost all of the breeds we wanted, so I immediately canceled my online order and brought home 2-3 week old chicks the same day. Now they’re in my dining room and I have three weeks at most to build a chicken coop. My own fault, I know, but I LOVE stuff like this. A big project, a deadline, power tools, paint…can’t wait.
3. Taxes. Not personal taxes; those were don’t long ago. The tax forms for the nonprofit orphanage are due by May 15th, and it’s a long and painful job. I’m not an accountant. But I’ve done the taxes for our organization since the beginning because we don’t want to spend the funds raised to go to the children on an accountant or tax preparer. It’s not that difficult; mostly I just hate doing it. And now I have less than two weeks to get it done. Started on it yesterday.
4. Sewing. I lost my sewing job back in January, but my boss (aka my Mom) said I could sew the remainder of the pillow covers using the bolts of fabric already purchased. I figure this will equal about three more paychecks, and so I just stopped sewing until our bank accounts got low. Now is the time to cash in on one of those checks. I sewed a lot last week, got paid…and then spent a good deal of it to buy the kids a trampoline (aka their summer vacation since we’re staying home). So now I kind of need to sew some more. Yeah, we’ll see how I work that in!
5. School ending. This is more of what’s coming rather than what’s just happened. Everyone knows (if you have kids) how crazy things get in May with various recitals, ceremonies, tests, and end of school events and parties. There’s always something. I’m just looking forward to it all being over so I don’t have to get out of bed so early each morning. Ah, summer!
6. The yard. Did I mention that we don’t have a dog in the backyard anymore? I keep remembering that I wanted to plant watermelons, or a shrub, or make a path to the back gate. Soon it will be too hot to do much of that, and the time is getting late for planting seeds…so I’m trying to fit yard work in, too. By the way, my little vegetable garden on the side of my house is doing very well. Turns out watering helps a lot!
And now, my family should be leaving in about twenty minutes. I’m still at the kitchen table in my robe, no breakfast out, and my youngest still in bed. But glad that I finally posted something!
Today: yard work, gardening, and the beginnings of a chicken coop. Tomorrow: taxes (forecast says 97 for tomorrow). Hopefully: more blog posts. Sadly, I don’t think I’ll have the novel revised by summer. Oh well. In the famous words of Scarlett O’Hara: Tomorrow is another day.
April 20th, 2010
My back is fixed! As you know if you’ve been reading my blog awhile, I had increasing back pain last year and was diagnosed with spondylolisthesis. When I got to the point where it even hurt before I got out of bed in the morning, I was ready to get it fixed. After a bad experience with foot surgery – something that took two years to be resolved to the point where it felt better after the surgery than before – I was leery. But it hurt all the time! I went through with the surgery on January 5. I can’t believe that I feel so good now, and I’ve felt this good from about the two month point. Two months! Now my muscles are gradually getting back to normal and will continue to gain strength and functionality for the rest of the year. I have only low level pain, and that’s only when I’m tired at the end of the day. If I lay down to rest, it actually helps. And I’m on no pain medication at all. I really think the most difficult part of the recovery (after I left the hospital) was withdrawals from hydrocodone. So, definitely a success all around! And cool x-ray pictures. It’s obvious which is the before and the after – note how my spine was shifted and stuck in place with screws. When it was shifted, I got taller, nerves got unpinched, and the cracks in that one section of spine were able to heal. The screws look so huge I keep thinking I should be able to feel them through my skin, but no.
April 19th, 2010
Yes, you heard me: David Copperfield. As in Charles Dickens. It’s not some new release, people. It was written in 1849-50 as a serial, and you can read or listen to the whole thing for free through any number of websites dedicated to the classics. I listened on my LibraVox.org iPhone ap (it was 35 hours long!). Again, as I work my way slowly though a list of classic literature, I’ve been delighted at my discovery. Who knew the classics were so good? Maybe that’s why they’re classics.
Charles Dickens said that of all his characters, David Copperfield was his favorite. The book follows little Davy from his difficult childhood through maturity. Oh, the characters! Naive Dora, who I didn’t like at first, but she turned out to be so honest and sweet that it was impossible not to love her – even though anyone could see from the first time he met Agnes that she would have made a better wife. Uriah was such a good villian, and I shuddered at the descriptions of his mannerisms right along with David. In today’s language, Dickens might say Uriah creeped everyone out. And then there were those horrible, horrible people at the beginning who took advantage of David’s mother and ruined his early life, and his faithful nurse Peggoty and her extended family who lived in the old grounded boat on the seashore, and the terrible betrayal by his best friend. I always sit at my sewing machine to work while I listen to audiobooks, and I had to stop and get the tissue box at the moment when David finally realized that it was Agnes all along, and they were both so overjoyed, and as they embraced, David had a vision of the little ragged boy he once was.
There’s something fulfilling and important about good long stories about real people and life, especially when at least some of the bad guys get what they deserve and most of the good guys have a happy ending. Charles Dickens was truly, truly a master. I want to read everything he wrote (already read Great Expectations…one of many), but I suspect David Copperfield will remain the favorite, as he was with Dickens.
April 13th, 2010
 I’ve planted a little garden in my side yard, in the perfect spot for success. My little vegetable plants – green beans, squash, cucumber – are between my kitchen door and the gate, so I’ll see them any time I open my door. So far, this has been enough to remind me to keep them watered. I put up a short gate and fence a month or so ago, in order to keep Harvey in the back yard and away from the enticing things he likes to chew: doormat, patio chairs, potted plants, gardening tools. So Harvey can’t eat my new garden. I’ve also got a blueberry bush. Several of these plants, which I started from seeds, will need to climb on something, so I’ve placed old metal chairs with tall backs, and a lovely rusty part of a bed frame against my fence. Already, my little garden is growing, and looking very fresh and springy. I’m so proud of the baby plants – and I hope I don’t botch it altogether.
I’m also seeing some growth with my manuscript. As you know, I entered the ABNA contest, but didn’t make it past the second round. After I entered, I discovered the wonderful book Manuscript Makeover, which really opened my eyes to some of the mistakes I was making. I deleted some irrelevant parts, particularly in the beginning, reduced my number of POV characters and changed how much face time each one had. I moved the supernatural element closer to the beginning so it wasn’t such a surprise. And I kept revising with so many more things in mind. Here’s the growth part: I got my ABNA reviews, and was delighted. The first reviewer said it was all around good, I have an excellent grasp of grammar, structure, characterization, and so on. She just had a few problems to point out – and they corresponded exactly with the elements I had already recognized and changed. So nice. The second reviewer was less kind. She did have some token nice things to say, but there was no practical advice I could take back to the manuscript with me to improve the story. Her main criticism was this: Why would I be reading this story instead of any other story? That took me aback; why indeed? On one extreme, you could say that no story has any value unless everyone who picks it up is enthralled and would rather be reading it than anything else. On the other extreme, you have the idea that every person has their own preferences, and we don’t all enjoy the same types of stories. So I’ve been thinking about this spectrum of story appeal, and where a writer should try to be. If you want to be published, your story has to appeal to enough people to make it viable in the marketplace. If you’re writing purely for yourself, then it doesn’t matter if anyone likes it but you. I do want to be published – and I wonder if my book had already had the corrections and improvements, would this judge have liked it at all. Or possibly it just isn’t her type of story. I don’t know. All of this thought is making me grow as a writer, though, and ultimately increasing my personal success and my chances of being published eventually, whether with the current manuscript or another. Growth is always good.
April 12th, 2010
Sorry for my absence last week; I’m back, and while things are still crazy, I’m at least forcing myself to blog. I’ll try not to whine too much. On to the book review.
Winter’s Bone by Daniel Woodrell is the book David Henson loaned me because I apparently said that I like disturbing books. This must have been during some discussion of The Lovely Bones. Winter’s Bone doesn’t shock you with the disturbing, but gradually builds toward it. Each chapter, you get a little something more, a deeper knowledge that some of the characters are not what I’d call normal. The story moves along very well, and yes, at the end you get to the big disturbing climax, and it’s pretty interesting.
Sixteen year old Ree Dolly is looking for her father, because he’s due in court, but he’s skipped bail. Their house and land have been put up as collateral, and if Ree can’t haul him in, she and her little brothers and their mentally ruined mother will be homeless. In the rural Ozark valley where the story takes place, the family clans stick unusually close together, defend each other, and sometimes take revenge if it’s warranted.
As practical Ree searches for her father and copes with what’s at stake, the reader gets a look into a lifestyle that’s a bit disturbing itself, in addition to the plot of the story. Drug use, violence, incest, and some strict social rules and a definite family hierarchy are just a part of the setting. While I wrinkled my nose at some of these characters, I found myself impressed with lovable heroine Ree. She has determination and spunk and won’t give up even when she should. While the writing didn’t do much for me – I laughed at some of the sentences where the author really went all out with his overdone prose – I have to admit that the story is good enough to overlook the writing. (This guy really knows his way around a thesaurus and never met a simile he didn’t like. But still.) I liked how he didn’t omit any big scenes, including the violent and grisly. Think of the movie Deliverance, and imagine the story told by someone on the inside. So yeah, I think it qualifies as disturbing.
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